


The Smallest Changes

by PrairieDawn



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s02e08 The Changeling, Gen, Memory Loss, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29266332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrairieDawn/pseuds/PrairieDawn
Summary: Nyota Uhura returns to the Guardian of Forever in an attempt to retrieve something she has lost.Note: Date changed to reflect creator reveals for exchange.
Relationships: Spock & Nyota Uhura
Comments: 17
Kudos: 18
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2020





	The Smallest Changes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).



Commander Nyota Uhura, in a very real sense, was born on the Enterprise at the age of twenty-six, sprung fully formed like Athena from the forehead of Zeus. The first moments of her life consisted of awakening on a narrow biobed to concerned faces looming over her, faces that were at first merely determined and grim, then fallen into a sadness that persisted for months, long after she had reawakened the parts of her emptied mind that held her words and her skills and she had begun to make friends of the strangers who knew her better than she knew herself.

It was Christine who had finally convinced her to call her mother six weeks after the incident, after a long and grueling mind meld that had done nothing save confirm that whoever she had been before she awakened on that biobed was irrevocably lost. Christine had wept. God, Spock had wept and that was something she never wanted to have to see again. The phone call had been awkward and painful, the visit home after the five-year mission more so, ending with more bitter tears.

She hadn't tried to contact her family again. It was better that they bury the memory of the daughter they knew rather than have to share their family with a ghost.

She stood in front of the stone donut, expecting stentorian tones to issue from it almost as much as she expected to be beamed off this desolate little world and arrested for what she was about to do. Instead, a middle-aged man in a butterscotch colored suit walked out from behind the Guardian of Forever as if he had been waiting for her to arrive.

"Nyota!" he said, rushing toward her as if they were old friends. "I admit to enjoying company, but you," he shook his finger at her, his lip pushed out just enough to be comical, "you shouldn't be here."

"And yet, here I am." She crossed her arms against the chill.

"So you are. Tell me, where do you wish to go? All worlds and times are open to you here."

"I want to save a life."

"Your own life," the Guardian said. "Are you willing to accept the consequences of such a change to time?"

She nodded.

"I see that you have brought a companion." He indicated Spock, standing behind her in Vulcan robes. As soon as he had completed this last service for her, he would be heading to Romulus to bury his grief at the loss of Admiral Kirk in an attempt to renew relations between that world's people and their Vulcan cousins.

"Insurance. In the event that my actions cause some catastrophic sequence of events that destroys our timeline."

"Efficient," the Guardian allowed. "Very Vulcan of you. His idea?"

"Mine."

She spoke a Stardate. Carl accepted her request with a nod and the portal opened.

*

Nyota considered that the direct approach was often best, so she stood outside her younger self's quarters, dressed in her late twenty-third century commander's uniform, and requested access.

The young woman who opened the door startled and stepped back, but regained her composure in a moment. "Hello, ah, commander, is it? 

"It is."

This was who she had been. She wished she could find a way to entice her younger self to stay in her quarters all evening and just talk about herself, her past, who she had been. This version of her had less than a day to live, after all, unless Nyota could convince her of her veracity. "Who are you?" Lieutenant Uhura said.

"I'm you. And not you."

Lieutenant Uhura's lips compressed into a skeptical line. "Really."

"Really. I shouldn't be here, but I needed to tell you something."

"And how exactly did you get here?"

"The Guardian of Forever sent me. Lieutenant. Nyota. Listen. On your next duty shift, you will encounter a device called Nomad. It will take my--your memory. Everything that makes you who you are now will be gone. Forever."

"Then how are you--" her eyes swept up and down Commander Uhura, taking note of her uniform.

"I started over. But I lost my roots. My childhood. My home. Please, just find a reason not to be anywhere near that thing."

"Find a reason," she echoed.

"You could try the truth. It's no stranger than some other things that have happened on this ship."

Lieutenant Uhura chuckled. "True. Well, forewarned is forearmed." She gave Commander Uhura another appraising look. "Do you have a little time? I'll make tea, and I promise I won't ask you to tell me anything you think you shouldn't."

Commander Uhura's face broke into a genuine smile. She entered her own quarters, the familiar space of her second infancy and childhood, and joined her former self for tea.

*

Lieutenant Nyota Uhura said goodbye to the kind, wise, lovely woman she was apparently destined to become someday and sat down at her writing desk to take out a few sheets of precious genuine paper stationery and a fountain pen. 

> **Dear Nyota--**

She wrote for nearly two hours until her hand cramped and she could not put off going to bed any longer. Her duty might take her life tomorrow, or her memory, but at least if some part of her did survive she could welcome that new self to the Enterprise, give her a head start fitting in, and, she hoped, keep her in touch with her family. It was that piece of her older self's story that hurt the most. That she would lose the connection she had to her home, her family, her culture--that was a connection worth rebuilding and she hoped that her letter would help to keep that connection alive.

She left the letter on the desk where she would find it after her shift tomorrow, to be put away in case of some future accident if the events her future self predicted failed to come to pass or to provide a bridge for that new self to build new memories.

*

The return to the Guardian's world was as uncomplicated as stepping through the portal had been dramatic. Spock was waiting for her in front of the portal with Carl beside him. She addressed Spock first. "I assume that the universe is unfolding as it should?"

"I have compared the key events we identified to the pinnace's data systems and there is one hundred percent concurrence. Was your mission successful?"

She stopped to gather her thoughts and found no sudden influx of childhood memories. She shook her head. "Just like in the letter. She told me she would be cautious, but her duty was more important to her than her life. And she reminded me to call my mother."

"Curious." They walked back to the beam down point. Spock held his hands clasped behind him, his posture and face fit to burst with unasked questions if you knew how to look. Finally, he turned to her. "And how long has it been since you spoke to your mother?"

"You know we vid com at least once a month. We have since--oh. That's not how it happened before, is it?"

Spock gave her the eyebrow. "Your mission was not as unsuccessful as you thought, Captain Uhura. It is best not to dwell further upon a past that no longer exists. Shall we?"

Uhura spoke into her comlink. "Two to beam up, Scotty."


End file.
